A Selfish Being

If a man’s love centres in himself as the highest or supreme object of his affections, which it must do, if it does not centre in some other being, he is of course a selfish being; and as such he cannot be regarded as a truly holy being. If he thinks for himself, acts for himself, lives for himself, as he must do if he himself be the highest object of love, it must be sufficiently obvious without any comment upon it, that he cannot be otherwise than selfish, and cannot be otherwise than unholy. 

All such love, which thus centres in ourselves, is wrong, and is not acceptable in the sight of God; because it is not proportioned to its object, and is inordinate.

It may be proper to add this remark here, that pure love or holy love is that love which is precisely appropriate to the object; being such, neither more nor less, as the object is precisely entitled to, so far as we are capable of understanding what the object is.

If our love centres in creatures inferior to God, and becomes supreme in them, it is necessarily selfish; as really so, though not so obviously so at first sight, as if it centered in ourselves. It is entirely obvious, that the motive for loving inferior beings in the highest degree, for loving them supremely, cannot be founded in their own characters. It is not a love, to which they are justly entitled. It is not right to love them in this manner. 

And if the motive of this love is not founded in their characters, and is, therefore, not based upon moral rectitude, it is founded, and must necessarily be so, in some selfish modification of our own feelings. The only active principle in man, which is antagonistical to rectitude, is selfishness in some of its modifications. Whenever a moral being deviates from the right, in any and all cases where he has a perception of what the right is, it will be found to be through the influence of self. In all such cases, if a being is loved otherwise than it ought to be, and is therefore loved wrongly, selfishness will always be found at the bottom. It will sometimes be very secret and almost hidden; but it will always be there.

— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.

No Manifestantion of God Can Exclude the Principle of Faith.

There may, undoubtedly, in the proper sense of the terms, be what may be called a manifestation of God; that is to say, a manifestation, which has relation to God; a manifestation, which indicates the fact of his existence and some of the attributes of his character. But God himself, including the mode of his existence, as well as the fact of his existence, God, in the fullness and extent of his being, never can be manifested. This, we think, however repugnant it may be to our first thoughts, is self-evident.

Once More Becoming the Children of God

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." — Matthew 18:3

In once more becoming the children of God, we receive and retain a filial nature, but without ceasing to possess a moral nature. Much is involved in that free and full consecration which every true Christian is supposed to have made of himself to his heavenly Father. As free and moral agents, we consent now, and forever, if we do what we ought to do, that God shall be a truth, a life, a nature in us; which he never has been and never will be without our consent. Adam before he fell, Christ in his humanity, angels in heaven, all holy beings everywhere, either have existed, or do now exist, as  holy beings, by means of the operation of God in the soul; and yet without any alienation of their moral attributes and responsibilities, because they have received this operation with their own choice, and have sanctioned it by their own approbation.

There is no true place of rest and safety, short of the reestablishment of those relations which we have endeavored to illustrate. Accordingly, we cannot regard it as safe for any one to stop in the progress of inward experience, until he feels and knows that he has become, in the Scripture sense of the terms, a LITTLE CHILD; not only having a child's name, but a child's nature. And when this relation is reestablished, not as a name merely, but as a reality, not as a mere conventional arrangement, but as a true nature, — then, and not till then, we are brought into true union with our heavenly Father.

It is on these principles, and these only, that we can make our position harmonize with our prayers. When we pray, we address God as our Father. This implies that we either are, or ought to be, his children. And our language throughout in prayer corresponds to the idea that our true position is the filial position. We pray that we may distrust and renounce ourselves, and look only to God for guidance and support. Recognizing our inability to supply our own wants, we pray for faith, for wisdom, for love, for the guidance of our wills. We go to him, in form at least, just as the little child goes to its earthly parent. If we will go in the same sincerity, our heavenly Father will recognize the relationship, and we shall thus become the true sons of God.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 5, Chapter 8.­

Holy Love is a Gift of God

Holy beings are created after the divine model; but it is worthy of notice, here as elsewhere, that the existence, which stands for the model, is itself the creating power. — God is their Father. Man, in not being able to make himself, is not able to make that holy love, which is the center of himself. On the contrary, holy love is a gift, as divine in its source as it is divine in its nature. It is just as impossible for men to originate, by their own action, the principle of pure or holy love within them, as it is to originate their own existence, or the power of perception and memory. Pure love cannot be created on the basis of prudential calculations; nor can it be originated by any other human device. Device, calculation, cannot raise itself to that divine height. And the reason is, it is a constituent, something inherent and organic, something without which reason itself, in its pure and unbiased forms, could not have been brought into action; something which does not and cannot by any possibility exist, except as a nature. In God it is nature eternal; in all other holy beings it is nature given.

— A Treatise on Divine Union, Part 4, Chapter 4.